This article was transcribed from a Customer Marketing Catch-up podcast episode with Virginia Bryant and Ari Hoffman.
At the time Virginia Bryant was Director of Customer Marketing at GitHub. She is now Director, Security, Marketing, Brand, and Customer Programs at Microsoft. Congratulations Virginia!
If you’d prefer to listen to the episode, you can do so here. 🎧
As the director of customer marketing at GitHub, I've witnessed firsthand how our field has evolved from its early days. Like many in customer marketing, I started in a completely different space – I was actually an architect by education!
After making several lateral career moves, I found my way into customer marketing about eight years ago, building a ground-up program at Zendesk before joining GitHub five years ago.
Today, customer marketing is having its heyday, with companies increasingly emphasizing the voice of the customer in their marketing strategies.
This evolution extends far beyond just logos and case studies – it now encompasses advocacy programs, customer advisory boards, and innovative approaches to post-adoption nurture.
Expanding beyond traditional boundaries
At GitHub, my team is focusing on how we can activate the voice of the customer through post-adoption nurturing. Instead of solely focusing on the funnel, we're thinking about how to transition customer voice into something that can help enable best results and ROI.
We develop evergreen content grounded in real-life scenarios that help people understand what feature optimization will mean for their end customers.
My role has begun to expand beyond traditional customer marketing.
I now oversee the Read Me Project, an editorial platform where we speak directly to our developer audience by providing actionable strategies for career growth, both technical and cultural. This expansion shows how customer marketing continues to evolve and find new ways to deliver value.
Testing and learning
One philosophy we embrace at GitHub is what we call "ship to learn" – don't be afraid to take risks or test something, but don't be married to it. If it's not delivering the results you're expecting or aligning with your intent, quickly pivot and try something new.
This is especially important when you're dealing with resource-intensive projects like podcasts or newsletters.
As Ari Hoffman, Director of Customer Advocacy & Community at Amplitude points out:
"When the market gets too saturated with podcasts, they start to die out. You can't set a program up and just set it and forget it. You need to constantly keep things evolving and being fresh and really engaging."
The importance of intent and cross-team collaboration
For customer marketing to succeed, integration with other parts of the business is crucial. I often describe customer marketing as a hub – we need to ingest information from other teams and align closely with them.
- Sales should be a core part of your pipeline generation for building customer content.
- Customer success should identify opportunities to create content that resolves common questions.
- Product marketing should be one of the core consumers of the content we produce.
Ari emphasizes this point with a crucial observation:
"I don't know if there is a position that is more centrally connected to more parts of the organization, and it can be really daunting.
"You're dealing with the product side and the engineering side because they want beta-test users and feedback loops. You're dealing with product marketing, all the teams on the marketing side, sales, customer success, and legal."
Recently, we've been working with our Customer Success team leadership to develop a shared definition of acts of advocacy and setting clear expectations for how Customer Success Managers can help funnel their customer champions to complete these acts.
This includes everything from speaking at events to providing logos, giving quotes, and offering beta feedback.
Making heroes of your internal partners
One crucial aspect of successful customer marketing is making heroes of your internal partners. When we publish something or complete a project, it's just as important to share it within the business as it is with customers.
We put together comprehensive posts outlining the story arc and what teams should know, including ready-to-use slides for pitch decks.
Most importantly, we always acknowledge the people who made it possible. Yes, sometimes it might feel like you're sharing the spotlight for what seems like a simple introduction, but this establishes healthy, appreciative relationships.
People remember that moment of feeling seen, and they come back to you when they have another great story to tell.
Building authentic relationships in an AI era
Let's talk about the elephant in the room – AI tools like ChatGPT. While they can be valuable for certain tasks (I'll admit I've used ChatGPT to help structure communications), maintaining authentic relationships remains paramount. I believe relationships need to be personal and authentic.
If you start using generative AI instead of writing honest, from-the-heart communications, you're going to lose something essential.
As Ari notes:
"There's a very fine line between being efficient and being lazy. Right? And AI will show you where you fall."
The reality is that AI can help in many ways. Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is start with a blank page, and tools like ChatGPT can help break that mental block. I’ve used it myself to get something down when I was staring at the screen, erasing the first sentence over and over.
It can help brainstorm or structure content, but the final product still needs to be in my own words, my own voice.
That’s where the distinction lies. If you use AI to be effective and efficient – to co-create and refine ideas – you can open up new doors. You can save hours of time and mental energy.
But if you lean on AI too much, simply copying and pasting what it spits out, you lose something fundamental. You can already spot LinkedIn posts where it’s obvious AI wrote them versus ones where someone took the time to customize and make them their own. The best content still needs a human touch.
I take an informal, human connection approach in my customer communications. With advocates I've worked with for four or five years, I’ll send them a quick note like:
"Hey! How’s it going? What’s up? What do you want to work on?"
That’s not the kind of message I’d send in a first outreach, but it works because we’ve built that relationship over time. If I just copied and pasted something from AI, it wouldn’t feel right. It wouldn’t build the deeper connection that allows me to reach out when I have a customer marketing emergency and need their help.
At the end of the day, AI should be a tool that enhances your work, not a replacement for authenticity. In customer marketing, the trust you build with your advocates and customers is everything – no AI can replicate that.
Advice for new customer marketers
Success in customer marketing isn't just about getting logos on websites – it's about understanding the individual goals of the human beings you're working with. I constantly try to think about how I can understand their professional development goals and find opportunities that align with their career aspirations.
Remember that behind every logo is a person choosing to take time away from their core responsibilities to help you succeed.
They're going through communications and legal challenges to push projects through. Building long-term relationships requires honesty and transparency.
For those entering customer marketing, focus on putting the customer first. Don't just say it – internalize it and truly believe it. As Ari puts it:
"We get paid to make friends for a living. Are you kidding me? Like, this is the best job on Earth. Right? So start there."
Look for ways to help your advocates become thought leaders among their peers, network with valuable connections, and advance their careers.
Be honest when things go wrong. If you need a last-minute favor because another customer dropped out, own it. People appreciate truth, transparency, and human connection.
They don't want to work with robots; they want to work with individuals who care and will go out of their way to help when needed.
The relationships you build today can last throughout your career. I've had customers who've moved to different companies and immediately reached out to collaborate again.
One gentleman has worked with me on projects from three different organizations – that's the power of authentic relationship-building in customer marketing.
Remember, we're not just collecting case studies; we're building bridges between people and organizations.
By focusing on genuine relationships and mutual growth, we create lasting partnerships that benefit everyone involved.
Want to hear more from people like Virginia in person rather than online? We've got a host of in-person events all over the world to satiate your curiosity. Take a look at our global event calendar below.
